Find Power Consumption & Carbon Footprint For 50,000 Electric Devices

It’s difficult to use less electricity if you don’t know how much energy it takes to run the devices in your home, and it’s challenging to reduce your carbon footprint if you aren’t aware of the CO2 emissions created as a byproduct of powering those devices. Whether you’re shopping for a new electronic device or appliance, and you’d like to make sure you’re getting the most efficient model, or you’re trying to assess the energy efficiency of the devices you own, you can use the WattDoesItUse website to get the answers you need.

WattDoesItUse lists more than 50,000 electric and electronic devices in its database, so chances are you’ll find the model you’re looking for on the website, whether it’s a new TV or a used laptop. The ability to create an account and add all of your devices allows you to see the aggregate power consumption figures, in order to get a comprehensive view of your energy ecosystem. By creating a user account with all of your devices listed on it, you can get a realistic estimate of your home power consumption, without having to buy an energy measurement device and do all of the analysis yourself.

To use the site, simply search for the brand name, model number, or manufacturer, and then select the exact model you’re considering from the search results. Each listed model has data for watt usage for that device, as well as idle or standby watt usage. In addition, a built in calculator allows users to input their local cost of electricity and the average number of hours used each day, and then displays the average daily, monthly, and yearly electrical costs and related CO2 emissions.

“WattDoesItUse provides multiple ways to save money: Discover the power consumption of your current electronics and adjust your use of them to save energy and money on your electricity bill. Find the most energy efficient device when buying a new one, which will save on your electricity bill. Find the total amount of standby power being used by your devices and unplug them to save energy when they aren’t being used.”

For example, I looked up the laptop I’m using to write this on, an older Dell Latitude E6420, and learned that it’s rated at 10.22 W during usage, and 1.29 W in standby. I use it about 8 hours per day, which amounts to a daily cost of about $.01 (at my local utility’s kWh cost of $.09), and a daily CO2 footprint of 0.16 lbs, so in a year, it is responsible for about $2.69 in electricity (in use), $1.02 in electricity (standby), and 59.68 lbs of CO2.

These figures aren’t hard and fast, however, as electricity consumption can vary quite a bit for the same appliance or device, depending on how they are set up and used. For example, a refrigerator that is mostly empty, or that has a lower temperature setting, or one that has its door opened more frequently, will use more electricity than a full refrigerator or one set to bit warmer of a temperature. Likewise, a computer or TV screen at its brightest setting will use more energy than a dimmed screen, and those electronics that are used to multitask (running multiple applications at the same time) or run graphics-intensive programs, will use more power than a similar device running a simpler program.

On each of the product’s pages in a user’s profile they have the ability to change the hours/loads/charges for the device, such as for higher usage (i.e. more air conditioning hours in hot climates or seasonally), which will impact the calculations of the cost on a daily, weekly, and annual basis.

In addition to helping you choose a more efficient or lower energy device, WattDoesItUse can also be used to help reduce the amount of electricity being consumed by devices on standby. Simply add all of your devices to your account on the website, and let it calculate the standby power draw for each item, and then use ‘smart’ power strips (or unplug them) to completely kill all standby power consumption from high wattage devices.

With a powerful search function and a large catalog of devices, including electric vehicles, WattDoesItUse is a great source for finding power consumption and energy conservation information for home devices, which can help in the quest to lower utility bills and the carbon footprint associated with them.

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